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Every instant was now pregnant with importance. Couriers passed to and fro on the road, villagers dropt by handfulls into the Red Lion, and occasionally a half-starved weazle-like attorney, might be seen addressing an attentive groupe on the virtues of loyalty and the property tax. Suddenly a shout was heard, and the Lieutenant rigged out in rusty regimentals, and mounted on an equally rusty charger, galloped down the street, with about a dozen ragged recruits behind him. By his side was a weatherbeaten Serjeant of Marines, bearing a flag formed of the combined flaps of two shirts, and painted with a profusely whiskered likeness of his Majesty, which all but the artist mistook for a goose and trimmings. On the opposite side stood the schoolmaster, preparing his speech, to the great annoyance of one of his nearest pupils, whose front teeth he divorced from their parental gums, by an emphatic flourish of his hand.

The clock now struck one, and a pair of thin attornies, followed by a detachment of cavalry, halted in front of the Red Lion. Immediately afterwards a trumpet was heard-then a loud huzza-then a clatter of horses, and the prolonged shouts of thousands. A cloud arose in the distance-swords flashed in the sun-beam,

and all eyes were directed to the royal cavalcade, which came thundering along the only decent street in the village. Mistress Roderick stood simpering at the inn-door, the Lieutenant made so profound a bow, that the' sinews of his back and braces were heard to give a simultaneous crack, and Tuckwell with an apron under his chin, rushed enthusiastically towards the carriage with May it please your Majesty

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the boiled beef and carrots-oh! Lord." This was all he could utter, for the dragoons closed round the vehicle, and notwithstanding the bill of fare, which he displayed on the point of a spit, the postillion cracked his whip, the trumpet again sounded, and away whirled the cavalcade in a cloud.

The rest of the day passed off pleasantly enough, and but few accidents occurred. The Lieutenant indeed, on the unexpected departure of his Majesty, is said to have pulled up his pantaloons with such astounding ferocity, that they dropped in a lump to his heels, to the consternation of Mistress Roderick, who fell ill at the sight, and was safely delivered of a cholera-morbus. The schoolmaster also is reported to have put his red copper snout so near to the touch-hole of a cavalry blunderbuss that the piece went off, and discharged its contents

in the bowels of an unhappy sucking-pig. This, however, I am somewhat inclined to doubt; but even if true, it can in no wise impeach the good order of the procession.

One circumstance, indeed of great political importance, I must not omit to mention. Disappointed, the one of his speech, the other of his boiled beef and carrots; both Dr. Breechem and David have turned radicals. They have since discovered that England is ruined, that Lord Londonderry* has got a secret plan for bringing over the Pope, changing the Protestant religion, and cutting off the heads of those who refuse to become Catholics. This they are in the habit of discussing at the Red Lion, and swallowed together with a glass of sour ale, it has a bitter effect upon the audience.

No one indeed can describe the gloom that their principles are daily shedding over the once happy village of Llangadock. A few weeks ago, a meeting was actually held on Carrick-Southey, where Dr. Breechem exhorted his congregation to stand up for reform, and was lodged in the stocks for his patriotism. From that time to the present, he

* This was written prior to the death of that accomplished Statesman.

has become an altered character. He reads Cobbett's Register; buys Hunt's breakfast powder, and has taken to running in debt, an accomplishment which he considers necessary to the completion of a genuine radical. Mistress Roderick toò is not without her discomfitures. Her pride has evaporated, and she is at the mercy of the landlady of the Castle, who retails many a sly sarcasm, at which, whether bad or good, her party are sure to laugh. As for the Lieutenant he daily employs himself in practising military tactics with his stinging nettles, while David heaves the most pathetic ululations, at having lost so good an opportunity of suffocating himself, like his ancestor Noodle-ap-doodle, with a mouthful of boiled loyalty.

To increase if possible, the discomfiture of the village, a dashing belle from the purlieus of Covent Garden, has lately taken up her residence in it. On her first arrival, (nominally to retrieve her health) she was looked up to with infinite respect. She had been, she said, to all the theatres, had associated with the genteelest company in Tottenham Court Road, and had purchased her bombazeen-gown at the Soho Bazaar. This last circumstance rivetted the respect of Dr. Breechem, who observed, that the word Bazaar, according to his friend Mr. Dapomeibomenos Polyphlosboio, was

of Eastern origin. He then proceeded to discuss the point; and in the warmth of argument, discharged a shower of such tough polysyllables at the Lieutenant, that had he not been blessed with a thick skull, the shot of one single consonant would have been enough to fracture it.

From the time of this good lady's arrival at Llangadock, I date the decay of its golden simplicity. The young village lasses are all agog for high life. They dream of nothing but bombazeens and Bazaars, Tottenham Court Road and short petticoats. Even the Lieutenant has caught the infection. He endeavours to screw his grim features into a leer of bewitching blandishment; has taken to rubbing up his regimentals, and was actually detected the other day, in inditing an "Elegy on a Love-sick Swain." Now and then he is heard to whisper something about an old soldier's settling for life; which taken in connection with the cir cumstance of his growing absent and melancholy, betokens an important family change. Such at present is the distracted policy of Llangadock. The Lieutenant is evidently in love, and so, I am afraid, is the Doctor; while from high to low, from the cottage to the hovel, nothing is heard but sighs for bombazeen-gowns and Bazaars, Tottenham Court Road and short petticoats.

Sweet little village! where the women never

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